The Consolidator; or, Memoirs of Sundry Transactions from the World in the Moon

by Daniel Defoe

1. That Country must needs be a Place of strange Perfection, in all parts of extraordinary Knowledge.

2. How useful a thing it would be for most sorts of our People, especially Statesmen, P----t-men, Convocation-men, Phylosophers, Physicians, Quacks, Mountebanks, Stock-jobbers, and all the Mob of the Nation's Civil or Ecclesiastical Bone-setters, together with some Men of the Law, some of the Sword, and all of the Pen: I say, how useful and improving a thing it must be to them, to take a Journey up to the World in the Moon; but above all, how much more beneficial it would be to them that stay'd behind.

3. That it is not to be wonder'd at, why the Chinese excell so much all these Parts of the World, since but for that Knowledge which comes down to them from the World in the Moon, they would be like other People.

4. No Man need to Wonder at my exceeding desire to go up to the World in the Moon, having heard of such extraordinary Knowledge to be obtained there, since in the search of Knowledge and Truth, wiser Men than I have taken as unwarrantable Flights, and gone a great deal higher than the Moon, into a strange Abbyss of dark Phænomena, which they neither could make other People understand, nor ever rightly understood themselves, witness Malbranch, Mr. Lock, Hobbs, the Honourable Boyle and a great many others, besides Messieurs Norris, Asgil, Coward, and the Tale of a Tub.

This great Searcher into Nature has, besides all this, left wonderful Discoveries and Experiments behind him; but I was with nothing more exceedingly diverted, than with his various Engines, and curious Contrivances, to go to and from his own Native Country the Moon. All our Mechanick Motions of Bishop Wilkins, or the artificial Wings of the Learned Spaniard, who could have taught God Almighty how to have mended the Creation, are Fools to this Gentleman; and because no Man in China has made more Voyages up into the Moon than my self, I cannot but give you some Account of the easyness of the Passage, as well as of the Country.

Nor are his wonderful Tellescopes of a mean Quality, by which such plain Discoveries are made, of the Lands and Seas in the Moon, and in all the habitable Planets, that one may as plainly fee what a Clock it is by one of the Dials in the Moon, as if it were no farther off than Windsor-Castle; and had he liv'd to finish the Speaking-trumpet which he had contriv'd to convey Sound thither, Harlequin's Mock-Trumpet had been a Fool to it; and it had no doubt been an admirable Experiment, to have given us a general Advantage from all their acquir'd Knowledge in those Regions, where no doubt several useful Discoveries are daily made by the Men of Thought for the Improvement of all sorts of humane Understanding, and to have discoursed with them on those things, must have been very pleasant, besides, its being very much to our particular Advantage.

I confess, I have thought it might have been very useful to this Nation, to have brought so wonderful an Invention hither, and I was once very desirous to have set up my rest here, and for the Benefit of my Native Country, have made my self Master of these Engines, that I might in due time have convey'd them to our Royal Society, that once in 40 Years they might have been said to do something for Publick Good; and that the Reputation and Usefulness of the so so's might be recover'd in England; but being told that in the Moon there were many of these Glasses to be had very cheap, and I having declar'd my Resolution of undertaking a Voyage thither, I deferred my Design, and shall defer my treating of them, till I give some Account of my Arrival there.

But above all his Inventions for making this Voyage, I saw none more pleasant or profitable, than a certain Engine formed in the shape of a Chariot, on the Backs of two vast Bodies with extended Wings, which spread about 50 Yards in Breadth, compos'd of Feathers so nicely put together, that no Air could pass; and as the Bodies were made of Lunar Earth which would bear the Fire, the Cavities were fill'd with an Ambient Flame, which fed on a certain Spirit deposited in a proper quantity, to last out the Voyage; and this Fire so order'd as to move about such Springs and Wheels as kept the Wings in a most exact and regular Motion, always ascendant; thus the Person being placed in this airy Chariot, drinks a certain dozing Draught, that throws him into a gentle Slumber, and Dreaming all the way, never wakes till he comes to his Journey's end.

Of the Consolidator.

These Engines are call'd in their Country Language, Dupekasses; and according to the Ancient Chinese, or Tartarian, Apezolanthukanistes; in English, a Consolidator.